"My reverie was interrupted by a hoarse voice calling, 'Ailsee!
Ailsee!'--seemingly just over in the forest.
"'Dad wants me,' she said with a smile. 'I'll go and fetch him back with
me. Please you folks wait a moment.' And she tripped lightly down the
garden and out into the wilderness beyond.
"Ten or fifteen minutes slipped by without the return of either Ailsee
or her father. The footfalls in the forest died away, and the stillness
was becoming oppressive.
"'Remarkable, truly,' said my wife, with a puzzled expression. 'Where
could she have gone? Do you think her father is keeping her? Dearest,'
she added gravely, 'don't laugh, I feel--I feel--that something dreadful
is going to happen. I don't know exactly what, but----'
"'Of course you don't know exactly what,' I interrupted. 'Come now, be a
sensible little woman. You surely don't believe in presentiments. It is
the heat; this sticky, Southern heat! I feel a little queer myself.'
"But nothing I could say quite banished the singular fancy which had
taken possession of my young wife. Womenkind cling tenaciously to absurd
ideas, especially when they are of the worrying kind; and Elizabeth
looked so troubled and sad that I soon caught the feeling and became
melancholy too.
"It was long past noon and intensely sultry, and we were sitting on the
porch where occasionally the faintest shadow of a breeze made life more
endurable.
Pages:
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163